The Way to Happiness Foundation’s new international headquarters in Glendale (above) is cause to celebrate — witness the fanfare at its spectacular grand opening late last year, and the support from community leaders across the globe for the new era of human relations it is generating.

Compact enough to fit in one’s pocket, a little booklet has nevertheless proven powerful enough to calm some of the world's most embattled areas.

It’s a publication that, when broadly distributed and read, has chilled violence and strife in apartheid-era South African townships, and today is doing the same in Palestine and Israel — where more than 1 million households now have and use copies.

Here in Los Angeles, volunteers in 1992 spread its message of mutual respect
and tolerance, with 1 million copies distributed throughout strife-torn neighborhoods. Immediate, observable and very positive change resulted. In its wake, gang members even joined forces to remove graffiti from 130 neighborhood buildings and to pass out more copies of the booklet.

This common sense guide for better living is called The Way to Happiness.

“If a single book can salvage a family or a cell block, then we don't have to imagine what will happen when we place The Way to Happiness in every business, in every community, in every home,” says Joni Ginsberg, executive director of The Way to Happiness Foundation International. “Our commitment is to make it happen.”

No better example of this commitment is the book's effectiveness in the Republic of South Africa over the past 20 years. Rena Weinberg, president of the Association for Better Living and Education, a sponsor of The Way to Happiness Foundation, was a pioneer in bringing the book's message to her native South Africa:

“As I worked amongst African teachers and students in the townships and rural areas using Mr. Hubbard's humanitarian programs, the need was more than obvious for uplifting these oppressed people. It required a common sense guide that would enable them to shed the yoke of apartheid, with decency and humanity. The Way to Happiness was published in four indigenous languages — funded by concerned multinational corporations and distributed by the millions, passed hand-to-hand and taught as stories by elders to children, teachers to students.”

Tribal conflicts dissipated, she explained, and thanks to the booklet's precepts, “honor and respect between men returned.”

More than 61 million copies have been distributed in 43 languages — across 92 nations — and it is endorsed by more than 2,000 civic organizations and governments, says Ginsberg.

But its roots are, without question, here in the Southland, with its impressive new international headquarters, officially opened and dedicated in late 2003,
now flourishing in downtown Glendale.

Building Honor, Decency

The Foundation provides a variety of custom booklet covers — with personalized messages — for individual and group distribution. Dozens of versions are available, including the Hispanic, Compton NAACP and Hollywood LAPD samples.

The power of this publication, written by author and humanitarian L. Ron Hubbard,
has been attested to by people in every corner of the globe. They include recent
visitors to Los Angeles who each have their own experience in bringing help to
troubled communities with The Way to Happiness.

Alfred Tsetsane, South Africa's Deputy Commissioner of Correctional Services,
praised The Way to Happiness for its impact upon prisoners under his care: “It has actually created role models, who we are proud to have speak in public platforms of their success. Yet what speaks even louder is this: Not one of those who have done The Way to Happiness program, and been released from prison, has since returned.”

What's more, he said, “There is a groundswell of African citizens seeking to rediscover themselves, to become the very best they can be. I believe that The Way to Happiness is a non-political, non-cultural and all-inclusive answer, well positioned to set the agenda of moral reconstruction in the whole world.”